More Faust than Frankenstein: the European debate about the precautionary principle and risk regulation for genetically modified crops

Tait, Joyce

doi:10.1080/13669870010027640

Cited by 103 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…One argument in its favour is that its use would prevent the accidental spillovers on to other germplasm in adjacent locations, thereby improving biosafety. People who hold this view argue that there are other mechanisms to assist the poor small farmer in developing countries [10]. The development and use of GURTs should not therefore be banned on poverty grounds such as this.…”

Section: (Iv) 'Terminator Technology' and Farmed Saved Seedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is useful at this stage in the argument to distinguish between two criticisms of this view. 10 The first is a systems criticism. The second one is an ethical one.…”

Section: (Ii) Risk Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…17 Again Paarlberg [20] shows how agricultural and scientific ministries are usually much more promotional to biotechnology that are environmental ministries. And the views of European CNGO's have certainly changed from a neutral position to a much more hostile position over the 1990's as trust in regulatory authority has dissipated (Tait [10]). …”

Section: (Ii) Risk Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tait [10] for example, shows how many European countries have now begun to take a much more cautious approach to biotechnology policy, especially with regard to the advent of GM crops. Her view is that the time has come to take the precautionary principle much more seriously than has been the case in the past.…”

Section: (Ii) Risk Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…See [13] for a discussion of the use of Bayesian formulae in relation to Third World science policy decisions. 9 Alternatively where investment funds were limited only the high value projects would be sanctioned 10 See [14] page 24, for a reference to John Stuart Mill in this context. upon how the system has behaved in past periods.…”

Section: (Ii) Risk Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Biotechnology and development: threats and promises for the 21st century

Clark

Stokes

Mugabe

2002

Futures

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This paper sets out to clarify the complex issues of risk perception and management in connection with biotechnology and Third World development. It summarises the main threats and promises associated with the technology before explaining why traditional approaches to risk are flawed from both a scientific and an ethical standpoint. It ends by making suggestions about how the precautionary principle may be made an operational tool for governments interested in ensuring that biotechnology leads to sustainable development.

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Section: (Iv) 'Terminator Technology' and Farmed Saved Seedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is useful at this stage in the argument to distinguish between two criticisms of this view. 10 The first is a systems criticism. The second one is an ethical one.…”

Section: (Ii) Risk Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: (Ii) Risk Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: (Ii) Risk Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: (Ii) Risk Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Biotechnology and development: threats and promises for the 21st century

Clark

Stokes

Mugabe

2002

Futures

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Language evolution and the spread of ideas on the Web: A procedure for identifying emergent hybrid word family members

Thelwall

Price

2006

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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Word usage is of interest to linguists for its own sake as well as to social scientists and others who seek to track the spread of ideas, for example, in public debates over political decisions. The historical evolution of language can be analyzed with the tools of corpus linguistics through evolving corpora and the Web. But word usage statistics can only be gathered for known words. In this article, techniques are described and tested for identifying new words from the Web, focusing on the case when the words are related to a topic and have a hybrid form with a common sequence of letters. The results highlight the need to employ a combination of search techniques and show the wide potential of hybrid word family investigations in linguistics and social science

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Identifying and characterizing public science‐related fears from RSS feeds

Thelwall

Prabowo

2006

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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A feature of modern democracies is public mistrust of scientists and the politicization of science policy, e.g., concerning stem cell research and genetically modified food. While the extent of this mistrust is debatable, its political influence is tangible. Hence, science policy researchers and science policy makers need early warning of issues that resonate with a wide public so that they can make timely and informed decisions. In this article, a semi-automatic method for identifying significant public science-related concerns from a corpus of Internet-based RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds is described and shown to be an improvement on a previous similar system because of the introduction of feedbased aggregation. In addition, both the RSS corpus and the concept of public science-related fears are deconstructed, revealing hidden complexity. This article also provides evidence that genetically modified organisms and stem cell research were the two major policyrelevant science concern issues, although mobile phone radiation and software security also generated significant interest. IntroductionPublic mistrust of science has probably existed as long as science itself. Historical manifestations have varied from popular culture such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau (Pinsky, 2003;Wilt, 2003;Wolpert, 2005), to mass antinuclear power movements (Herring, 2006;Hsu, 2005). In recent years, many scientific issues have become politicised and have given rise to pressure groups, media coverage, and public debates. Two of the most prominent have been stem cell research and genetically modified food, both of which have triggered significant social sciences and ethics research (Hagendijk, 2004;Tait, 2001;Tsai, 2005). The politicization of science debates has lead to government policy and legislation curtailing researchers' activities in response to public pressure. The importance of this is potentially great (Leydesdorff & Etzkowitz, 2003). Given the key role of research within a profitable modern knowledge-based economy (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 1997;Gibbons, 1994), for example, in the biotechnology and computing industries, falling behind with a newly emerging technology is a national potential disaster. Conversely, allowing science to continue "unchecked" (except for the normal self-regulation process) may cost humanity too high a price if the critics are correct (Chadwick, 2005;London, 2005). In consequence, a large amount of research has been devoted to topics such as the sociology and ethics of individual science policy debates (Klotzko, 2004). It is hence particularly important to be able to identify the next significant science concern debate as early as possible so that research into the social, ethical, legal, and policy implications can begin and support politicians to make wellinformed, timely decisions. The research reported here is part of an international European Union-funded project (www.creen.org) that aims to develop automatic methods to help identify critical p...

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More Faust than Frankenstein: the European debate about the precautionary principle and risk regulation for genetically modified crops

Cited by 103 publications

References 5 publications

Biotechnology and development: threats and promises for the 21st century

Biotechnology and development: threats and promises for the 21st century

Language evolution and the spread of ideas on the Web: A procedure for identifying emergent hybrid word family members

Identifying and characterizing public science‐related fears from RSS feeds

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